Day #10 in DC: Adventure Park, and Girly Dinner
[Photos from 08 AUGUST 2015, posted online 25 October 2015. Distance in time is sometimes good.]
Conscious of how much fun the kids had at a tree climbing park in France, I sought out a similar park in the US, where one traverses a course that has been created by stringing cables/planks/ziplines/objects between tall trees, while securely harnessed. Tickets were booked, and this time I (Hrefna) was the one to take them, and not Finnur.
I’m not quite sure if this trip goes down in the books as a good one or a bad one, but Bjarki will probably remember it forever.
Why? Well, Bjarki and I went on one last course, while Anna waited on the ground because she was tired. We chose a difficulty above the ones we’d done that day, and somewhere along the middle, we ran into our first elevating-plank walk, where Bjarki got scared, and wanted to quit. It took such a long time for help to arrive though, that he changed his mind and decided to keep going, thinking that the crazy-long zip-line two tree-hops over, was the end.
We made it to the zip-line, but since Anna was on the ground photographing, he had to traverse it all by himself. Previously, Anna had always gone first, catching Bjarki and stopping him, with me following. Since we hadn’t really trained him, he failed to stop at the tree, sliding back, at which point he panicked, let out a loud scream for help, and the assistants came running.
One of the guys managed to get through to him (my voice wasn’t cutting it) and told him to “make life harder for the guy about to come help him, by moving towards the middle of the line” which Bjarki apparently decided was a stupid idea, because he promptly started dragging himself towards the landing-tree, disembarking the line safely. He then got himself over a tree-hop, and to the assistant guy, who then helped both of us to disembark the course by one of those things that lets you slide vertically down slowly.
Anyway, the moral of the story I tried to impart was that a) he’d been very brave, overcoming his fears, and pushing his own boundaries, b) that it was ok to panic, but c) that it was fantastic of him to overcome his panic and get himself to safety. He himself seemingly came away with knowing it was ok to cry in front of strangers, so who knows?!
In the evening, I got picked up by my friend Margrét who lives in the area, and we went out to dinner. Elsa joined us later on for drinks and a fun chat. It was nice not to have to deal with a kiddie dinner and/or bedtime!!
Photos! (20 images total)
All harnessed up and ready to go!
Back to the beginning. The park welcomes walk-ins, but it was a good thing we reserved ahead of time, because they were so busy that morning that they ran out of harnesses about the time we were being processed.
We were quite literally the last people allowed in a long line to get harnesses. Once we got out harnesses, we got a time stamp some three or four (?) hours into the future, which dictated the time we had to start our last course by.
After we’d been through a quick training demo, it was time to climb onto the main platform, from where all the courses run. I was an idiot and went on the first course wearing my backpack with the camera, and almost got stuck, so it came off before the next course. Hence the very few pictures!
Snack time. Behind them is a climbing structure which is separate from the forest courses.
It wasn’t until Anna bailed out before the last course that the camera came out again. The settings were a little off to begin with, but it’s sort of arty, no? Anyway, that triangle thing was a little nuts because you had to zig zag between them to follow the safety line. It was interesting how the difficulty of the courses was in large part dependent on body size.
See the steps on the left? This is me (Hrefna) about to traverse the triangle crossing. Behind us were somewhat impatient pre-teens, who’d obviously done this quite a few times before, and I was very glad they managed to pass us, when Bjarki had his first melt-down.
On the platform where Bjarki had his first “no, way, I’m not doing that crossing” meltdown.
… and then he did it!
Me (Hrefna) following him up. What freaked him out was a) that the plank was at a fairly steep angle, and b) post-plank, the course was really quite high up in the air.
Bjarki zoomed over this very long span, while I turtled behind him.
The turtle. See how steep the plank is leading up to the long plank walk?
After the long plank crossing, there was a very long zip line. This shows what a zip-line landing tree looks like, but I think the landing tree our zip line went to is to the right of the closest landing tree here.
Bjarki steeled his nerves for a long time, and then he went for it, because really, there was no other way to go! (Wait for the image to load, it should run smoothly then.)
After a bad panic, Bjarki then rescued himself, and climbed solo to this tree where there was a vertical drop to the ground.
Assistant in a brightly colored shirt greeting him, and preparing him for going down.
Back at home base, everyone enjoyed having the ground beneath their feet again.
Margrét came to fetch me around dinner time, and there was no way to pay for parking except with coins or through the phone!
Who carries coins any more?!?!
The always fabulously awesome Margrét!